China without steppe nomads

[Salvador79]

This is a follow-up on this thread: https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...-to-extinction-instead-of-domesticated.410092
In which the consequences of an extinction of steppe horses were discussed, primarily along the lines of alternate domesticates.
But there would also be great implications for civilizations which developed early.
Soooo:
How would the region we call China IOTL look in a TL where horses become extinct and there are no horse-backed steppe nomads around?

 

[Optical_Illusion]

Hmm... Peter Turchin's work on states presents a theory that the building up of states tends to be in response to military pressures and the advance of military technology. I don't know if I totally believe it, but I find it interesting enough to think through. In the case of Eurasia, for the historically biggest empire states, particularly China, his idea is this is due to the pressure on the border from military competition with increasingly large and militarily effective tribes, then confederacies and empires of nomadic pastoralists.

People in nomadic societies are very mobile and tend to have to fight a lot to protect cattle, and herding doesn't always take much time compared to farming, and this leads to them being effectively able to field lots of experienced soldiers / warriors. In response, agriculturalists need to expand their political structure widely to recruit more soldiers, ideally specialists, who are also quite mobile, or else suffer raiding.

In his theory, the earliest empire states tended to form either faster, or at all(!), in response to this pressure, in Egypt, Mesopotamia, China. (I think his theory is weaker on why the Indus Valley Civilization happened btw, but then it also is quite different in features from many other early civilizations).

If you had no horses, I think you would probably have pastoralist nomadic societies on the edge of China. Those would be either like the early Indo-Europeans who went east, or a local people (Turkic, Mongolic people). It might take longer without horses to help spread herding and pastoralism east faster (the way happened in our history).

However, the ability of pastoralist groups to exert pressure on agricultural tribes and states, though, might peak earlier without the horse.

To make their mark in Europe, the earliest Indo-European pastoralists seem like they used ox drawn wagons, bronze weapons (or stone equivalents in the case of the Corded Ware Culture, aka stone Battle Axe Culture), combined a cultural habit of making war, derived from cattle raiding. Horse riding was probably not as important militarily for anything other than moving and scouting.

(Azar Gat in his book "War In Human Civilization" has a good section about how even if the earliest IE had horse riding, as indicated by archaeological finds of bits, it is unlikely the early IE used horse riding directly in military, to then supplant it with chariots later on.)

After that, in our time line, horse based innovations - first chariots and then later embracing horse riding and the composite bow in battle and stripping out heavy wagons - enabled steppe pastoralists to continue to threaten states and also make a mark in the Near East and India (when enough pastoralists could come together militarily). In a horseless world, this might not remain true.

So if you follow Turchin's theory, China might not have as much pressure to come together as a single large empire state, so you might see a perpetual warring states period instead, over the long scale, with only temporary large empires leaving a Rome like legacy. More like Europe, which was relatively sheltered from pastoralist nomads. (If all this theory is true...)

 

[PhilippeO]

even without horses, there will still be pressure from people with less fertile lands. since Yellow River is more fertile while North China is rather dry, i expect city states with wall and army would still exist. demand of control of irrigation and river transport would likely still pressure continuous war until one city unify entire river to an empire.

 

[Russian]

This is a follow-up on this thread: https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...-to-extinction-instead-of-domesticated.410092
In which the consequences of an extinction of steppe horses were discussed, primarily along the lines of alternate domesticates.
But there would also be great implications for civilizations which developed early.
Soooo:
How would the region we call China IOTL look in a TL where horses become extinct and there are no horse-backed steppe nomads around?

I didn't follow too closely the "no horses" thread, but I guess there might have been camels or/and donkeys used instead of horses.
But from my point of view there is no real substitute to the horse; or at least a millennium or so needed for breeding process.

The Chinese built the Great Wall(s) for the purpose. Now no need for it.
That alone saves insane amount of resources and energy or actually make it possible to spend it anywhere else.
So a few (a dozen?) grand canals might have been built earlier/more.

Usually China had to keep enormous army(ies) in the North against the nomads.
And a lot of subsidies were often paid to the nomads.
Even when the Chinese were successful against the Great Steppe these were often Pyrrhic victories - even the victorious army lost almost all horses and oxen there (and a lot of people). So it was cheaper to pay them off.

I guess some Chinese forces would be in the North in the alternative "no-horses" world, but significantly smaller, and I presume the steppe peoples would often be the oppressed party. So they would bring tribute to China (cattle, slaves whatever).

My hunch is that China would conquer twice as much in this ATL.
If they choose "go West" strategy they might reach Iran and Indus valley in their conquests.
If they choose "go South" - Indo-China is theirs and parts of (Eastern) India.

By now the Chinese language would have been lingua franca of the World. Actually ours would have been the 'Chinese world' instead of the 'European world'.

 

[Russian]

Hmm... Peter Turchin's work on states presents a theory that the building up of states tends to be in response to military pressures and the advance of military technology. I don't know if I totally believe it, but I find it interesting enough to think through.
....
So if you follow Turchin's theory, China might not have as much pressure to come together as a single large empire state, so you might see a perpetual warring states period instead, over the long scale, with only temporary large empires leaving a Rome like legacy. More like Europe, which was relatively sheltered from pastoralist nomads. (If all this theory is true...)

I thought about it, but the first Chinese empire-building efforts of OTL didn't seem to be because of the nomad pressure. Actually during "warring states" period the Chinese states were doing just fine against the nomads. So my guess the unification of Chine into the Empire had nothing to do with the response against the nomads.

By the way there's a theory that it was vice versa - it was the nomads who started to form large entities/empires as a response against the more populous advanced and aggressive sedentary Chinese polities.

 

[Optical_Illusion]

@Russian, to some extent the shadowy world of prehistory comes into play to some extent. Turchin's thinking IIRC is that the origin of first Chinese proto-states that laid claim to all of Chinese civilization (the mythical Xia and then the more concrete Shang and Zhou) are along the margin between productive agriculture (at the time) and nomads, and also he says that the origin of the Qin state that conquered all the rest was in the northwest border, and this is his thinking about why it was most committed to conquering all the rest (more determined to pull together all the Chinese resources together because of ongoing military race with the steppe). Plus his evidence is that this pattern (dynasties originated close to the pastoral nomads border) is repeated throughout history.

But yeah, there are the alternative theories that larger states in China / Mesopotamia arise in response to competition between people in the agricultural world or even to manage flooding / irrigation. Going even further into it, it's tough to disentangle all this because in Eurasia because the places where the early crops (grasses) and most productive agriculture come from are going to be fairly near the steppe grassland because of geography, and in the Americas where the earliest crops were not fairly near a big reserve of steppe grassland, you don't have the same dynamics (in Mesoamerica and South America)... This is all why I think it's an interesting theory but not sure of it myself.

Re: larger steppe nomad empires being a response to settled states, yes, you would think the same dynamics would be two way to some extent, and larger empires on the steppe also motivated by steppe people trying to solve problems with raiding one another, rather than purely motivated by raiding / conquering the settled world. (I would tend to be a bit weak on any reading seeing them as purely a kind of justified response to the imperial Chinese aggression because, you know, they did come into being to go to China and kill people and take their stuff. Steppe pastoralists can be plenty aggressive.)

 

[Russian]

@Russian, to some extent the shadowy world of prehistory comes into play to some extent...

Oh, prehistory is shadowy indeed.

I would tend to be a bit weak on any reading seeing them as purely a kind of justified response to the imperial Chinese aggression because, you know, they did come into being to go to China and kill people and take their stuff. Steppe pastoralists can be plenty aggressive.

As I see it people are aggressive. I mean human beings as such. Irrespective whether steppe pastoralists or farmers/peasants. Everybody fought against everybody since the beginning of time. The farmers attacked farmers, the pastoralists attacked pastoralists, the settled peoples waged wars against the nomads and vice versa. They competed over land, women, resources, valuables and further just for glory or revenge.

If your polity is bigger you have an advantage, so the bigger entities and confederations give an edge in this Darwinian struggle. Whence the empires are inevitable. With or without nomads.
Sargon of Akkad was not a nomad and he fought against (mostly) settled entities, and his was one of the first greatest Empires. The (republican) Romans were settled farmers/peasants but they were more aggressive than all the nomads in the World put together.

We see the nomads as more aggressive just because the history was written by the sedentary/settled peoples. And we are sedentary. So we are looking at it from a sedentary point of view.
It is us vs them.
And if it is us, the settled peoples, who attack and kill the nomads - we're being valiant, if it is the nomads - they're aggressive and treacherous.

 

[Zhou Yu]

China without steppe nomads?

You might want to get out the butterfly nets, or this will take forever.

You'd be looking at a stronger Yan, and likely a weaker Zhao during the warring states period. Yan was forced to build walls to keep the nomads out, whereas the Zhao, under Zhao Wuling, adopted their tactics for war. Assuming the Qin still unite China, they don't need to build the Great Wall. Whatever resources they invested upon that would likely go to expansion and more canals. Beyond that? I can't say. The butterflies caused in China by the lack of steppe nomads are absolutely massive. Without steppe nomads, you may as well rewrite the Warring States, potentially rewrite Chinese unification - the Qin may never take power, etc...

Dynasties beyond the Warring States and the start of the emperors might be completely different. Whatever replacement for the Han dynasty might never follow the Chu model, thus rewriting Chinese culture, and thus how it interacted with its surrounding nations. Beyond the Han... The butterflies are massive, even if we butterfly-net up until certain points in OTL.

The Northern and Southern dynasties wouldn't have happened the way it did OTL, if it did at all. The Three Kingdoms might have been concluded sooner, had the Wei not been forced to put as many resources towards securing the north as they did. The Tang wouldn't have existed. Same goes for the Yuan. The Song would have been completely different.

TL;DR: Lots of butterflies.

 

[Workable Goblin]

Without steppe nomads, you may as well rewrite the Warring States, potentially rewrite Chinese unification - the Qin may never take power, etc...

Well, yeah. Remember, the original Zhou power base was the Wei basin--which, as it so happens, was the power base of the Qin later on, when they were doing the unification. The reason the Qin had it at all was because of the Western-Eastern Zhou shift, which allegedly happened because of "barbarian" attacks on the Zhou capital and surrounding lands near the Wei.

No nomads, no attacks. No attacks, the Zhou don't move east. No eastern movement, and the Qin remain a minor vassal instead of being promoted for loyalty (Xiang of Qin supposedly protected Ping of Zhou as he was fleeing east) and to help secure the western border. No Qin, no Qin-led unification. All of history is different (of course, Sima Qian may have been mistaken...)

 

[Salvador79]

I tend to find the theory cited by Optical Illusion plausible, i.e. that there wouldn't be one China. Ultimately, states still come about, though. Thanks to everyone for their input on that!
What do you think about the hypothesis that bronze-working was introduced to the Yellow River from the West, by a horse-dominated culture (proto-Tokharians?)? That would change a lot early on.
If not, still: How would ethnic makeup, culture, religion etc. be altered, what would still be recognisable?

 

[Zhou Yu]

I tend to find the theory cited by Optical Illusion plausible, i.e. that there wouldn't be one China. Ultimately, states still come about, though. Thanks to everyone for their input on that!
What do you think about the hypothesis that bronze-working was introduced to the Yellow River from the West, by a horse-dominated culture (proto-Tokharians?)? That would change a lot early on.
If not, still: How would ethnic makeup, culture, religion etc. be altered, what would still be recognisable?

Well, yeah. Remember, the original Zhou power base was the Wei basin--which, as it so happens, was the power base of the Qin later on, when they were doing the unification. The reason the Qin had it at all was because of the Western-Eastern Zhou shift, which allegedly happened because of "barbarian" attacks on the Zhou capital and surrounding lands near the Wei.

No nomads, no attacks. No attacks, the Zhou don't move east. No eastern movement, and the Qin remain a minor vassal instead of being promoted for loyalty (Xiang of Qin supposedly protected Ping of Zhou as he was fleeing east) and to help secure the western border. No Qin, no Qin-led unification. All of history is different (of course, Sima Qian may have been mistaken...)

The thing is, Zhou China was highly successful when it was around, lasting for close to 800 years before its eventual disintegration. Keep that in mind. Assuming other factors don't intervene, they'd be able to stay in power for longer. However, that would in no way prevent their eventual decline, and the rise of absolutism in China.

As for the theory that China wouldn't be united, I find that somewhat less plausible. If we look at the Shang (Skipping Xia for obvious reasons), they were defeated by the Zhou, who were not nomads. Furthermore, keep in mind that in the Zhou dynasty, there was no united system of walls - each of the dukes and whatnot under the king made their own version. As such, I posit that China would still unite. Chinese unification was present before the Spring and Autumn, as well as the Warring States. If the conditions OTL were to be created, I suspect something similar as OTL (temporary fragmentation followed by unification) would occur. The condition in question would be to drive Zhou from their power base. I suspect that any number of factors could cause it, as the "barbarians" referred to by the Chinese didn't concern only the nomads, but most of the peoples around them.

If we posit that China does not unite... This is interesting. The degree of recognizability that would occur depends heavily upon when the split occured. The latest possible time for China to permanently split, in my opinion, would have to be during the Warring States. Anything later would result in a united, imperial China. Let the Qin (Or any of them, actually) grow too large, and they'll unify China. Let any of them unify China, and it'll stay unified. OTL, after the Qin fell, some rebels attempted to partition China back to how it was in the early Warring States era. Within a few years, they started blobbing into the various kingdoms, and unified China themselves. After the Han Dynasty, it'd be impossible to truely break the country. The idea would have set in too deeply.

 

[Workable Goblin]

As for the theory that China wouldn't be united, I find that somewhat less plausible.

Well, yeah, there's a reason I specifically said a "Qin-led unification" and not just "unification".

 

[Diego]

I would like to remember that sedentary people used horses too, so there will be a downside, a decrease in the productivity of farms, in communications and transportation capacity. Considering that without horses you don't have mules too, logistics and trade become a lot harder. So those effects should be acknowledged.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Hmm... Peter Turchin's work on states presents a theory that the building up of states tends to be in response to military pressures and the advance of military technology. I don't know if I totally believe it, but I find it interesting enough to think through. In the case of Eurasia, for the historically biggest empire states, particularly China, his idea is this is due to the pressure on the border from military competition with increasingly large and militarily effective tribes, then confederacies and empires of nomadic pastoralists.

IIRC Turchin also said that states on a major civilisational boundary ("meta-ethnic frontier", as he calls them) are more likely to form empires, because they have a clearer "them" against which to define their "us" and are therefore more cohesive. Since the steppes were unsuitable for most agriculture you'd still have a meta-ethnic frontier between the settled Chinese and the nomadic steppe peoples, although with less threatening northern neighbours there might be less incentive to unite compared to OTL.

My hunch is that China would conquer twice as much in this ATL.
If they choose "go West" strategy they might reach Iran and Indus valley in their conquests.
If they choose "go South" - Indo-China is theirs and parts of (Eastern) India.

I doubt it; sheer distance would make supporting an army there (and keeping control of any conquests) difficult, and a lot of China's western and southern borders consisted of mountains and forests, very difficult terrain to campaign across.

After the Han Dynasty, it'd be impossible to truely break the country. The idea would have set in too deeply.

The ideal of Romanitas was very well-established by the fifth century, but nobody was able to truly reunite the Roman Empire.

 

[AnonymousSauce]

I tend to find the theory cited by Optical Illusion plausible, i.e. that there wouldn't be one China. Ultimately, states still come about, though. Thanks to everyone for their input on that!
What do you think about the hypothesis that bronze-working was introduced to the Yellow River from the West, by a horse-dominated culture (proto-Tokharians?)? That would change a lot early on.
If not, still: How would ethnic makeup, culture, religion etc. be altered, what would still be recognisable?

The geography of China is too conducive to unification for S&A/WS period entities to exist indefinitely, so I think that China would still end up unified, but I suspect the borders of alt-China would be more similar to the Tang Dynasty than OTL, because I suspect that China would have had little incentive to conquer very much steppe/desert/rugged mountainland besides the Silk Road (assuming the Silk Road even existed ITTL, which I do because camels I would think would be sufficient to run it.)

I would like to remember that sedentary people used horses too, so there will be a downside, a decrease in the productivity of farms, in communications and transportation capacity. Considering that without horses you don't have mules too, logistics and trade become a lot harder. So those effects should be acknowledged.

Yeah, I suspect humanity would be millenia behind where we are technologically IOTL absent horse domestication.

 

[Salvador79]

I would like to remember that sedentary people used horses too, so there will be a downside, a decrease in the productivity of farms, in communications and transportation capacity. Considering that without horses you don't have mules too, logistics and trade become a lot harder. So those effects should be acknowledged.

Indeed. One such effect is also for communication within sedentary societies to be slowed down. Another is no cavalry and no chariotry here, either, or at least, in the case of the latter, a less decisive one. That might make large territorial states unlikely.

 

[Russian]

Yeah, I suspect humanity would be millenia behind where we are technologically IOTL absent horse domestication.

I don't know...
There's no substitute to horses in warfare, that's true.
But in all other spheres people can use donkeys, oxen and camels. And no need for millennium to breed, they are good as they are.
Instead of one horse to pull a cart, you can harness two donkeys, something like that, no big deal.
Speed is crucial for warfare, for real life economic purposes it's not that essential.

I doubt it; sheer distance would make supporting an army there (and keeping control of any conquests) difficult, and a lot of China's western and southern borders consisted of mountains and forests, very difficult terrain to campaign across.

Bad wording from my part, sorry.
I didn't mean conquering and keeping. I meant conquering, holding for some time and then loosing it.
But after loosing these parts would stay part of 'Chino-sphere' - the regions under strong Chinese influence, like OTL Corea, Japan, Vietnam etc.
Even in OTL some conquering was possible, I mean the idea of expansion was not alien to the Chinese mentality.

In ATL China would built a lot of grand canals and other infrastructural projects.
Instead of Great Wall(s).
So in the alternative world 'without horses' China is less looted by the nomads, it is less scorched from time to time, it doesn't have to pay much tribute to pay off the nomads, it doesn't have to man the Great Wall(s), it doesn't have to loose too many armies (men, horses and oxen) in the steppes on a regular basis.
So the Chinese economy prosper, there'a a population boom (according to Malthusian principle) and China might afford spending more it's men on expansion.

And the other difference with OTL might be change in the Chinese mentality. China might become less 'closed', more inclined towards expanding into the outer world.
I mean in OTL sending fleets somewhere far away and spending finances for similar purposes was kind of reckless. Everybody knows that this money and efforts would be much better used on maintaining the Northern border against the nomads - because just wait and in no time the hordes of mounted warriors would gather and storm China. And then your overseas lunatic ventures won't help you.

In the alternative "world without horses" there's less need to keep an eye on the North and that Chinese attitude might change...

 

[Salvador79]

@Russian
Completely agree that the setback won't be millennia, and some factors may outweigh.
Civilizations in China might profit overall. Maybe Yellow River expansion and settlements do lead to a comparable Sinification. But all under one Empire still doesn't Sound plausible to me given the absence of the threats Qin faced and also slow communications.

 

[Russian]

and also slow communications.

Importance of the horse for the imperial communications seems to be overrated a little bit.
That might be demonstrated by that empire. I mean - no horses, huge communication lines, rough terrain:

But all under one Empire still doesn't Sound plausible to me given the absence of the threats Qin faced

I don't know, may be you are right...
But ask yourself: "What nomad threats did the Roman Empire face?"
There were threats, but no more, no less than any other polity faced, for example any of the warring Chinese states.
But the Roman Empire was born and it lasted for more than half a millennia as a huge 'China like' Empire.
So, from my point of view, the external (Barbarian) threat as a main factor for the empire-building is overrated as well.

 

[Salvador79]

Importance of the horse for the imperial communications seems to be overrated a little bit.
That might be demonstrated by that empire. I mean - no horses, huge communication lines, rough terrain:
View attachment 309747


I don't know, may be you are right...
But ask yourself: "What nomad threats did the Roman Empire face?"
There were threats, but no more, no less than any other polity faced, for example any of the warring Chinese states.
But the Roman Empire was born and it lasted for more than half a millennia as a huge 'China like' Empire.
So, from my point of view, the external (Barbarian) threat as a main factor for the empire-building is overrated as well.

OK, you may have a point there, too. So, occasional unification of larger parts of China appear not implausible. That's a parallel to OTL.
You say it would be wealthier and more stable. Other divergences?